Hi, I'm Ben Reed

I started building software professionally in 2006 during a placement year at Sift Group while studying at the University of the West of England. Back then it was custom CMS work, Drupal development, and Flash (yes, Flash). I graduated with a First Class degree in 2008, but by then I'd already been working for two years building sites for clients like The Kennel Club and the NHS.

In 2010, I jumped ship to Mubaloo and entered the wild world of mobile development. This was peak mobile diversity—iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia Symbian—you name it, I built for it. I started as an iOS Developer, then moved to Mobile Web Apps, became Web Team Lead, then iOS Team Lead, and eventually Head of Technology—basically a CTO role where I was supporting new business opportunities and pitches. I worked on everything from public-facing consumer apps to enterprise software for the likes of UBS, DHL, Endemol Gaming, William Hill, Aviva, and Alliance.

But there was a problem: agency life meant I never saw projects through to completion. You'd build something, hand it off, and move to the next pitch. It was frustrating. After five years, I wanted to work on products rather than projects—to actually see something through and iterate on it.

So in 2015, I joined Careflow Connect as Head of Mobile and developed the much-loved Careflow Connect iOS app. I also contributed to the Android and web versions. Finally, I could see a product evolve and improve based on real user feedback. In 2020, we were acquired by System C Healthcare, and I'm still there today.

These days I work across iOS and full-stack web development using Vue.js, Vuetify, and C#. I've only been working with C# for about three months, but I stand by my belief that if you know programming fundamentals, picking up a new language is just learning the libraries. Right now I'm heavily involved in an ambient listening project where my skills have been put to the test, and I've been using ChatGPT and Claude as my sidekicks. I'm a firm advocate for AI-assisted development.

I'm as much an architect as I am a developer. I like to map things out before setting off—plan the structure, think through the edge cases, then build it properly. Sometimes that means saying no to the quick fix and doing it right the first time.